One of the unintended side effects of the growth of virtualization and cloud computing is the resurgence of the thin client. At this past TechEd in Orlando I met with Diana Wong, HP thin client embedded product manager and Karin Taylor Worldwide PR Manager to look at HP’s new t610 thin client PC-like experience for virtualized desktop environments.
The t610 thin clients deliver full scale PC power in a small and inexpensive form factor. Built using AMD’s new APU technology the t610 comes with an AMD 64-bit dual-core T56N APU with Radeon HD 63202 Graphics (1.65 GHz, 1 MB L2 cache) processor. It provides DirectX 11 graphics support and has DDR3-1600 RAM with up to 4 GB of capacity. Externally the t610 has a DVI-I and DisplayPort.
There are two models: the t610 and the t610 Plus. Externally both have 4 USB 2.0 (2 front/2 rear), 2 USB 3.0 (rear),1 DVI-I, 1 DisplayPort, 2 PS/2, 1 serial, 1 GB RJ-45. Both models also offer built-in WiFi. The slightly larger Plus model adds support for 1 parallel connector and 1 half-height PCIe x4 card slot. The HP t610 units consumes about 65W HP while the t610 PLUS uses about 85W which is less than many light bulbs.
For enterprise connectivity the t610 supports DirectAccess, RDP, and BranchCache. It also supports RemoteFX. One of the most interesting things that HP demoed was the t610 thin client’s support for multi-touch. As of June 2012 Windows Embedded 7 is supported by the t610 thin client enabling multi-touch when used in conjunction with a multi-touch monitor like the HP L2105tm. The t610 starts at $399 with Windows Embedded Standard 7 and the HP L2150tm multi-touch monitors lists for $279. You can find out more at HP Thin Client Solutions.